The Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota is committed to an inclusive study of gender and sexuality, informed by differences such as class, ethnicity, citizenship, disability, race and age. Our intellectual goals for students include learning from and engaging with interdisciplinary scholarship on gender, women, and sexuality; understanding the intersections among race, gender, class, and sexuality, both in the United States and globally; developing critical and analytical skills by bringing together the methods of a range of disciplines; enhancing research skills and creative talents and developing new ideas and theories about gender and sexuality that challenge assumptions and contribute to social change.

All students in baccalaureate degree programs are required to complete general University and college requirements including writing and liberal education courses. For more information about University-wide requirements, see the
liberal education requirements.
Required courses for the major, minor or certificate in which a student receives a D grade (with or without plus or minus) do not count toward the major, minor or certificate (including transfer courses).

Program Requirements

Students are required to complete 4 semester(s) of
any second language.
with a grade of C-, or better, or S, or demonstrate proficiency in the language(s) as defined by the department
or college.

CLA BA degrees require 4 semesters or the equivalent of a second language.
CLA BA degrees require 18 upper-division (3xxx-level or higher) credits outside the major designator. These credits must be taken in designators different from the major designator and cannot include courses that are cross-listed with the major designator. The major designator for the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies BA is GWSS.
Students may earn a BA or a minor in gender, women and sexuality studies, but not both.
All incoming CLA freshmen must complete the First Year Experience course sequence.

Students are required to take one upper division writing intensive course within the major. If that requirement has not been satisfied within the core major requirements, students must choose one course from the following list. Some of these courses may also fulfill other major requirements.

U.S. multi-/cross-cultural studies of contemporary social, cultural, and personal conditions of women's lives. Includes honors recitation.

GWSS 1002 - Politics of Sex
(SOCS, DSJ)

Credits:

3.0
-4.0
[max 4.0]

Typically offered:

Every Spring

Introductory survey of historical, cultural, psychological, and sociopolitical dimensions of analyzing gender/sexuality. Norms/deviances pertaining to gender/sexuality as differently enacted/understood by social groups in different time-/place-specific locations.

GWSS 1003W - Women Write the World
(LITR, GP, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02326

Typically offered:

Every Fall

Concepts in literary studies. Poems, plays, short stories, novels, essays, letters by women from different parts of world. Focuses on lives, experiences, and literary expression of women, including basic concepts of women's studies.

GWSS 1004 - Screening Sex: Visual and Popular Culture
(AH)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Fall Even, Spring Odd Year

Film history and theory; feminist critique of popular culture.

GWSS 1005 - Engaging Justice
(CIV)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Fall Odd, Spring Even Year

U.S./cross-cultural studies of social movements/political organizing around justice/equality.

GWSS 1006 - Skin, Sex, and Genes
(SOCS, TS)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Fall Odd Year

Interdisciplinary course that explores the tense relationships between science, medicine, and gender and sexuality.

GLBT 1001 - Introduction to GLBT Studies
(DSJ, SOCS)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

01968

Typically offered:

Every Fall

History of contemporary GLBT-identified communities. Terms of theoretical debates regarding sexual orientation, identity, and experience. Analyzes problems produced and insights gained by incorporating GLBT issues into specific academic, social, cultural, and political discourses.

Course explores a range of feminist theoretical perspectives, asking how theory develops both in response to earlier theoretical traditions and in the context of diverse forms of practice, starting from the assumptions that theories emerge from (rather than just being applied to) practice, and that theory-making is itself a form of practice.

GWSS 3102V - Honors: Feminist Thought and Theory
(AH, CIV, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02318 - GWSS 3102W/GWSS 3102V

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Every Fall

Course explores a range of feminist theoretical perspectives, asking how theory develops both in response to earlier theoretical traditions and in the context of diverse forms of practice, starting from the assumptions that theories emerge from (rather than just being applied to) practice, and that theory-making is itself a form of practice.

Ways in which modern biology has been site of conflict about race/gender. Race/gender demographics of scientific professions.

GWSS 3208 - Transgender Health

Credits:

2.0
[max 2.0]

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Every Spring & Summer

Transgender Health is an online course which prepares future health care and social services professionals to serve the diverse needs of transgender patients and clients. This course offers feminist perspectives on clinical transgender health care. Students will engage with literature from feminist and queer studies, public health, medicine, social work, legal studies, and public policy.

Dis/ability is not a physical or mental defect but a form of social meaning making mapped to certain bodies in larger systems of power and privilege. Feminist approaches to dis/ability as vector of oppression intersecting and constituted through other oppression such as race, class, gender, sexuality and citizenship. Dis/ability must be understood through systems of power that construct, support, regulate, and determine the life chances of those who claim, or are claimed by disability. Deconstruct the complex ideologies of ableism and the material realities of such oppression, and work toward imagining and reconstructing a more just and equitable society.

GWSS 3290 - Topics

Credits:

1.0
-3.0
[max 9.0]

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Every Fall, Spring & Summer

Topics specified in Class Schedule.

GWSS 3301W - Women Writers
(LITR, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Every Spring

Complexities of women's roles and way women writers have used various genres of literature to articulate personal and social struggles. Fiction, poetry, drama, critical nonfiction texts. Fidelity/betrayal within relationships and societal perceptions. What images of femininity do these writers convey? How do formal and stylistic devices transform meaning?

GWSS 3302 - Women and the Arts
(AH, DSJ)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Every Fall

Study of women in the arts, as represented and as participants (creators, audiences). Discussion of at least two different art forms and works from at least two different U.S. ethnic or cultural communities.

GWSS 3306 - Pop Culture Women
(AH, DSJ)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Every Fall & Spring

Contemporary U.S. feminism as political/intellectual movement. Ways in which movement has been represented in popular culture.

GWSS 3307 - Feminist Film Studies
(AH, DSJ)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Every Fall

Construction of different notions of gender in film, social uses of these portrayals. Lectures on film criticism, film viewings, class discussions.

History of and contemporary thinking about public policies and legal remedies directed toward domestic violence and sexual assault. How notions of public/private spheres and social constructions of gender roles, agency, and bodies contribute to attitudes/responses.

GWSS 3490 - Topics: Political Economy and Global Studies

Credits:

3.0
[max 6.0]

Typically offered:

Every Fall, Spring & Summer

Topics specified in Class Schedule.

GWSS 3502 - Transgender Studies Now
(DSJ)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02557 - GLBT 3502/GWSS 3502

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

Transgender studies transforms ideas about gender, sexuality, identity, and biology. We look at knowledge is made about transgender life across disciplines and media: film, fiction, and the internet, as well as medicine, history, anthropology, and gender studies. Also asks how transgender social practices and community politics are embedded in dynamics of race, class, sexuality, nationality and ability.

GWSS 3590 - Topics: Social Change, Activism, Law, and Policy Studies

Credits:

3.0
[max 6.0]

Typically offered:

Periodic Spring

Topics specified in Class Schedule.

GWSS 3993 - Directed Study

Credits:

1.0
-12.0
[max 12.0]

Typically offered:

Every Fall, Spring & Summer

TBD
Prereq instr consent, dept consent, college consent.

GWSS 3994 - Directed Research

Credits:

1.0
-12.0
[max 12.0]

Typically offered:

Every Fall & Spring

TBD
Prereq instr consent, dept consent, college consent.

GWSS 3002W - Gender, Race, and Class in the U.S.
(DSJ, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02027

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

Comparative study of women, gender, race, class, sexuality in two or more ethnic cultures throughout U.S.

GWSS 3002V - Honors: Gender, Race and Class in the U.S.
(DSJ, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02027 - GWSS 3002W/GWSS 3002V

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

Comparative study of women, gender, race, class, sexuality in two or more ethnic cultures in U.S.
prereq: Honors

Gender/sexual violence to poststructural, anti­racist theories/debates about social construction of sexuality. How intimacy/violence are co­-constituted within normative frameworks of U.S. governmentality. Writings by black feminist criminologists who have linked incarceration, welfare reform, other forms of state regulation to deeply
systemic forms of violence against people of color.

AFRO 3402 - Pleasure, Intimacy and Violence

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02383

Typically offered:

Spring Odd Year

Gender/sexual violence to poststructural, anti-racist theories and debates about social construction of sexuality. How intimacy and violence are co-constituted within normative frameworks of U.S. governmentality. Writings by black feminist criminologists who have linked incarceration, welfare reform, and other forms of state regulation to deeply systemic forms of violence against people of color.

GWSS 3404 - Transnational Sexualities
(GP)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

01539

Typically offered:

Fall Odd, Spring Even Year

Lesbian/gay lives throughout world. Culturally-specific/transcultural aspects of lesbian/gay identity formation, political struggles, community involvement, and global networking. Lesbian/gay life in areas other than Europe and the United States.

GLBT 3404 - Transnational Sexualities
(GP)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

01539 - GLBT 3404/GWSS 3404

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

Lesbian/gay lives throughout world. Culturally-specific/transcultural aspects of lesbian/gay identity formation, political struggles, community involvement, and global networking. Lesbian/gay life in areas other than Europe and the United States.

GWSS 3406 - Gender, Labor, and Politics
(SOCS, GP)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02455

Typically offered:

Every Fall

Historical developments/contemporary manifestations of women's participation in labor force/global economy. Gender as condition for creation/maintenance of exploitable category of workers. How women's choices are shaped in various locations. Women's labor organizing.

GWSS 3406H - Honors: Gender, Work, Labor
(SOCS, GP)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02455 - GWSS 3406/GWSS 3406H

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Every Fall

Historical developments/contemporary manifestations of women's participation in labor force/global economy. Gender as condition for creation/maintenance of exploitable category of workers. How women's choices are shaped in various locations. Women's labor organizing.

History of women in the United States from 1890 to present. Women's changing roles in politics, in labor force, in family, and in popular culture. Work, family, sexuality, gender ideologies, women's right struggles. Different experiences of women based on race, class, religion, and region.

HIST 3348 - Women in Modern America

Credits:

3.0
-4.0
[max 4.0]

Course Equivalencies:

Hist 3348/WoSt 3348

Typically offered:

Every Spring

History of women in the United States from 1890 to the present. Explores women's changing roles in politics, the labor force, the family, and popular culture.

GWSS 3409W - Asian American Women's Cultural Production
(AH, DSJ, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

(Select a set)

Typically offered:

Every Fall

Analysis of media, art, literature, performance, on artistic contributions. History, politics, culture of Asian American women. Interpret cultural production to better understand role of race, gender, nation within American society/citizenship.

Comparative survey of ethnographic/ethnohistorical writings by/about American Indian women.

GWSS 3413 - Women and Gender in Latin American History
(GP, HIS)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

00770 - GloS 3934/GWSS 3413/Hist 3424

Typically offered:

Periodic Spring

Changing gender norms in Latin America over time as compared with lives of women/men of diverse classes, ethnic groups. How women responded to their position in society, on continuum from accomodation to resistance.

HIST 3424 - Women and Gender in Latin American History
(GP, HIS)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

00770

Typically offered:

Spring Odd Year

Changing gender norms in Latin America over time as compared with lives of women and men of diverse classes and ethnic groups. How women responded to their position in society, on a continuum from accommodation to resistance.

GLOS 3934 - Women and Gender in Latin American History
(GP, HIS)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

00770

Typically offered:

Spring Odd Year

Changing gender norms in Latin America as compared with lives of women/men of diverse classes/ethnic groups. How women responded to their position in society, on continuum from accommodation to resistance.

GWSS 3501 - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Social Movements in the United States

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

01970

Typically offered:

Every Spring

Interdisciplinary course. Development of GLBT social movements using social movement theory/service learning.

GLBT 3301 - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Social Movements in the United States

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

01970 - GLBT 3301/GWSS 3501

Typically offered:

Every Spring

Interdisciplinary course. Development of GLBT social movements using social movement theory/service learning.

GWSS 3505W - Girls, Girlhood, and Resistance
(WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02558 - GWSS 3505W/GWSS 3505V

Typically offered:

Fall Odd Year

A critical engagement with what constitutes "girlhood" and "resistance" through comparative analyses of girls' resistance and activism across North America.

GWSS 3505V - Girls, Girlhood, and Resistance
(WI)

Credits:

0.0
-3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02558 - GWSS 3505W/GWSS 3505V

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Fall Odd Year

A critical engagement with what constitutes "girlhood" and "resistance" through comparative analyses of girls' resistance and activism across North America.

Comparative survey of ethnographic/ethnohistorical writings by/about American Indian women.

GWSS 4001 - Nations, Empires, Feminisms

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Spring Even Year

Feminist critiques of the nation-state and citizenship, political economy and development, globalization, and/or empire and colonialism. Overview of the broader literature and an interrogation of specific attendant questions (such as how do feminists theorize state violence; what are feminist and queer critiques of U.S. empire; and how do feminists theorize globalization from above and below).

GWSS 4002 - Politics of Engagement and Social Justice
(CIV)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Fall Odd Year

Ways in which feminist scholars have thought about and worked to complicate the opposition between theory and praxis. Diverse efforts by intellectuals situated within the Western academy to produce scholarship that is committed to deinstitutionalizing knowledge production and relevant to political struggles confronted by their own material and institutional inequalities.

GWSS 4003 - Science, Bodies, Technologies

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Spring Odd Year

Feminist approaches to scientific methods and practices. Relationship between scientific practices and social relations, emphasizing the larger social, political, and economic context in which scientific knowledge production takes place. How scientific knowledge structures relationships of power and inequality, and constructs understandings of bodies and identities. Ways in which science shapes meanings of sex, race, gender and sexuality.

Third World and transnational feminisms. Interrogating the categories of "women," "feminism," and "Third World." Varieties of power/oppression that women have endured/resisted, including colonization, nationalism, globalization, and capitalism. Concentrates on postcolonial context.

GWSS 5104 - Transnational Feminist Theory

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Fall Odd Year

Third World and transnational feminisms. Interrogating the categories of "women," "feminism," and "Third World." Varieties of power/oppression that women have endured/resisted, including colonization, nationalism, globalization, and capitalism. Concentrates on postcolonial context.

GWSS 4204 - Sex, Love, & Disability

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02552 - GLBT 4204/GWSS 4204

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

In America's cultural imagination, people with disabilities are figured either as childlike and asexual, or improperly hypersexual. For disabled people (or anyone perceived as disabled) this paradox has meant denial of sexual agency and gender expression, histories of forced sterilization and institutionalization, sociopolitical marginalization, and great risk of sexual violence (and even death). In this course, we'll examine this history to better understand our contemporary present. We'll analyze constructions of disability and sexuality as they are interwoven with gender, class, race, and citizenship. We will ask: What might it mean to desire disability? Is there a disability sexual culture? Do disabled people queer sex, or does sexuality queer disability? What is the relationship between GLBTQ and disability rights and liberation movements? Drawing from feminist, queer, and disability studies, we'll answer these questions (and more) by examining how the imagined able-bodymind structures our understanding of gender/sexuality, and how disability sexual cultures resist these norms.

GLBT 4204 - Sex, Love, & Disability

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02552 - GLBT 4204/GWSS 4204

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

In America's cultural imagination, people with disabilities are figured either as childlike and asexual, or improperly hypersexual. For disabled people (or anyone perceived as disabled) this paradox has meant denial of sexual agency and gender expression, histories of forced sterilization and institutionalization, sociopolitical marginalization, and great risk of sexual violence (and even death). In this course, we'll examine this history to better understand our contemporary present. We'll analyze constructions of disability and sexuality as they are interwoven with gender, class, race, and citizenship. We will ask: What might it mean to desire disability? Is there a disability sexual culture? Do disabled people queer sex, or does sexuality queer disability? What is the relationship between GLBTQ and disability rights and liberation movements? Drawing from feminist, queer, and disability studies, we'll answer these questions (and more) by examining how the imagined able-bodymind structures our understanding of gender/sexuality, and how disability sexual cultures resist these norms.

This course will give you a solid theoretical foundation in the field of queer studies in addition to explaining its relation to other scholarly traditions, including (but not limited to) feminist theory, GLBT studies, literary studies, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism. Over the course of the semester you will examine the historical forces that birthed queer politics and theory, become conversant in its conceptual basis, interrogate and analyze its various uses and applications, and finally apply it in your own arguments.
prereq: Any GWSS or GLBT course

GLBT 4403 - Queering Theory

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

01639

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

This course will give you a solid theoretical foundation in the field of queer studies in addition to explaining its relation to other scholarly traditions, including (but not limited to) feminist theory, GLBT studies, literary studies, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism. Over the course of the semester you will examine the historical forces that birthed queer politics and theory, become conversant in its conceptual basis, interrogate and analyze its various uses and applications, and finally apply it in your own arguments.
prereq: Any GWSS or GLBT course

Ways in which modern biology has been site of conflict about race/gender. Race/gender demographics of scientific professions.

GWSS 3301W - Women Writers
(LITR, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Typically offered:

Every Spring

Complexities of women's roles and way women writers have used various genres of literature to articulate personal and social struggles. Fiction, poetry, drama, critical nonfiction texts. Fidelity/betrayal within relationships and societal perceptions. What images of femininity do these writers convey? How do formal and stylistic devices transform meaning?

GWSS 3002W - Gender, Race, and Class in the U.S.
(DSJ, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02027

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

Comparative study of women, gender, race, class, sexuality in two or more ethnic cultures throughout U.S.

GWSS 3002V - Honors: Gender, Race and Class in the U.S.
(DSJ, WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02027 - GWSS 3002W/GWSS 3002V

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Periodic Fall & Spring

Comparative study of women, gender, race, class, sexuality in two or more ethnic cultures in U.S.
prereq: Honors

Analysis of media, art, literature, performance, on artistic contributions. History, politics, culture of Asian American women. Interpret cultural production to better understand role of race, gender, nation within American society/citizenship.

GWSS 3505W - Girls, Girlhood, and Resistance
(WI)

Credits:

3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02558 - GWSS 3505W/GWSS 3505V

Typically offered:

Fall Odd Year

A critical engagement with what constitutes "girlhood" and "resistance" through comparative analyses of girls' resistance and activism across North America.

GWSS 3505V - Girls, Girlhood, and Resistance
(WI)

Credits:

0.0
-3.0
[max 3.0]

Course Equivalencies:

02558 - GWSS 3505W/GWSS 3505V

Grading Basis:

A-F only

Typically offered:

Fall Odd Year

A critical engagement with what constitutes "girlhood" and "resistance" through comparative analyses of girls' resistance and activism across North America.